Tuesday, September 25, 2012

This year we found inspiration for our Michaelmas Nature Table at school in the Waldorf kindergarten next door to our own. (For a view of the aforementioned inspiration click here.) When I first presented the idea to Ryan he thought I was a little crazy. A Michaelmas sandcastle in our living room? All kinds of crises unwanted are sure to arise from such an endeavor. (Sand everywhere, cats... child horrified at the imminent crumbling, cats... child throwing sand in the house, cats... you get the idea.)
Well, I decided to do it anyway. So entranced by the idea I was.
After a week or so of looking up methodology on Google, I finally had the brilliant thought to ask the actual creator of my inspiration how such a thing were possible in a room full of young children. "Cornstarch", she told me. It's the magic that makes it all possible. Cornstarch keeps the whole thing from just crumbling into a heap when the children bump the table or prod at the final glory.
And so I began...

All I used was:
-sand
-water
-corn starch
-old plastic cups and yogurt containers
-a palette knife (any kind of knife or even a popsicle stick would have worked)

I filled a bucket with play sand that I harvested from our summer sand
box. (I understand that fine beach sand is always better for making
castles but I don't have a beach handy and after I sifted out the larger
gravelly bits from the sand with a sieve, the play sand seemed to work
just fine.)
To the half bucket of sand I added the whole box of corn starch and really stirred this together before the next step.

I then added enough water and really stirred it in to make the mixture very wet but not overly soupy. (About a gallon?)

Now, what does a castle look like? The first one I started looked like a sheet cake with a strange disease and I swept it all back into the bucket and started over. I'd suggest looking up castle images online or in children's books. Have a plan and then proceed... Your castle certainly doesn't have to look like mine!

I happened to have a piece of plywood laying around that just fit my Nature Table so I used that for my base. (I did this messy work outside and then carried the completed castle in once it was finished.)

I started the actual castle sculpting by making turrets. I squeezed the sand in my hands to draw out as much water as possible before dropping tennis ball sized globs into my forms.

I then patted them down hard with the palms of my hands.

A lot of water oozed out the bottom of the forms as I did this and that was soaked up with an old towel.

It's important to really compact the sand and dry it as much as possible so that the sand holds when the form is removed.

To make taller turrets, several cup forms were stacked, filled and patted. (The lower cups should still be in place when the upper cups are put on top.)

After the proper height was reached, the forms were gently pulled away.

(If things start to go awry and fall apart, don't worry. It's sand! Just throw any disasters back in the bucket and start again.)

When all my turrets were in place, the walls were built by again dropping tennis ball sized clumps of sand in a line. I patted them down, formed them a bit with my hands and then did more precise cutting with my palette knife. It was kind of like slicing cake. (Of course, not all castles will even have these kind of stark edges and lines. The castle that inspired this all, for example, was much more organic and natural looking.)

To make that classic castle wall edge (there's a name for this but I have no idea what it is), I again used my palette knife and sliced and lifted out the little rectangular pieces.

For windows, I simply carved into the turret walls with my trusty knife.

(One could get really detailed and carve "bricks" or more elaborate windows into all the walls but I didn't really have it in me... with all the possible cat and child destruction on the horizon... know what I mean?)

I added a little stairway between the lower and upper levels and then had to give a fair amount of thought to how to top the whole thing off.

I remembered when I was a kid how at the beach we used to make these cool drip castles using very sloshy, wet water. I thought that would make a neat pointy roof for the turrets, so I added more water to my remaining sand mixture

I transferred some of that into a smaller cup that I could hold closer to my project and scooped up and dripped the wet, slushy water from my hand onto the tops of the towers.

I thought it gave the classic castle a more whimsical, natural look which fits into my daughter's gentler, fanciful style of play.

Thursday, September 13, 2012

Sometimes my daughter comes up with some really creative (and sometimes amazingly endearing) things to do or say to avoid going to bed at night. About an hour after I tucked her in this evening, she called to me as I was doing the dinner dishes. I walked her back to her room and tucked her in.

"Mommy, I love you so much that I could kiss you for my entire life'" she told me as she grabbed me and gave me a giant hug and kiss. "...although I don't think that I'm gonna," she added, "...what if I have to pee?"

Saturday, September 8, 2012

We found these cute flower buttons at a local craft store and Naiya wanted to sew them onto something. I had an old felted wool blanket that I had stored (read hoarded) away should we ever find need for an old felted wool blanket. (I have some ridiculous boxes and bins full of all kinds of peculiar natural crafting materials. I'm not sure whether to be proud or ashamed of the quantity.)
Anyhow, I cut her this little odd shaped green material and she sewed to her hearts content.

When it was done she started to use it as a play garden for her puppet shows and doll games. As its novelty wore off, I decided to alter it a bit to perhaps inspire some different amusements. I cut out some triangles from the edges, sewed them back together and turned the little mat into a hill.

I used some wool roving to mound it up then hand stitched the hill onto a larger mat that could take on some additional elements. A stream perhaps? A needle felted veggie patch? A bear's cave or some shrubberies?

It's a project slow in its creation as it's one Naiya and I are building on together. At the moment she loves it just as it is and her little dolls so enjoy a good roll down the flowery hill.

Thursday, September 6, 2012

The Oregon Garden in Silverton (only miles from Silver Falls and about an hour outside of Portland) is a
spectacular 80 acre botanical garden with 20 specialty gardens and an
adjoining resort.

We try to get a visit in once a year and stay a night at the Resort to take advantage of the Dinner Special they offer with lodging, wine, breakfast and admission to the garden included. (Great deal for $109!) We spend a day at Silver Falls State Park, make full use of the resort's outdoor pool and hot tub, enjoy a decent dinner and comfortable room then spend the next day exploring the beautiful (and sometimes quirky) grounds.

This time around we also did a little letterbox hiding to spice up our regular routine. (For our newest search clues click here and here.)

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